By Stephen Smoot
Last week, the Harrison County Commission addressed a thorny issue on the agenda.
In a previous meeting, Commissioner David Hinkle raised a question about Trecost participating in votes regarding the Charles Pointe development. Trecost had received a $2,500 donation from an individual with significant involvement in the development there and Hinkle questioned if that campaign support rose to a level of undue influence.
That question was accompanied by a request for a written opinion to establish guidelines in the matter. At the opening of the meeting’s business, Trecost moved that the county attorney who conducted the research and made his conclusion have his opinion read into the record. The motion passed on a two to one vote with Commission President Susan Thomas voting in favor.
After conducting interviews, reviewing primary documents, and investigating cases used as precedents in such matters, the attorney rendered his opinion. First, this type of matter had never inspired guidance from the office of the State Attorney General.
Context for the situation, as the attorney explained, included the fact that the contribution represented less than 10 percent of Trecost’s total sum of donations in that cycle.
Case law included 28 opinions that touched on campaign contributions to local elected officials, the closest to this situation occurring in Colorado. The definitive case on undue influence, however, came from a West Virginia case, Caperton vs. A. T. Massey Coal.
“Caperton is really the case nationwide” that other campaign contribution cases regularly cite as an authority.
In this case, A. T. Massey Coal made a sizable donation to a candidate for the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals. That donation dwarfed most others and made up a sizable percentage of funds available to defeat the incumbent. That justice then, once elected, joined a majority opinion supporting the very company that made the donation.
The United States Supreme Court even then did not find that a justice or judge would have to automatically recuse him or herself when involved in a case involving a campaign donor. “High risk of actual bias” comes about when the donation is “disproportionate” to the rest of the campaign financing efforts and that the “timing” of the case right after the election had an impact as well.
In the case of Trecost, the legal opinion read into the record stated that the donation he received was “not so extraordinary” in proportion to other supporters.” Furthermore, the case cited involved the judicial system, where a judge or justice has considerable unchecked influence relative to a county commissioner.
Also, “outstanding public safeguards” exist to prevent campaign contribution influence on one elected official from being a paramount factor in an assembly of elected officials who must work together to obtain results.
Later in the meeting, the Charles Pointe development came up again in debate and discussion. An agenda item mentioned “submission of a letter by the County Commission and Charles Pointe EODD Board to the attorney for Holders of Series 2008 Property Tax Increment Revenue Bonds issued by the County Commission for the Charles Pointe development.”
When the agenda item came up in its turn, Hinkle protested that “I have not seen this letter. I hate to think at 10:35 today that we can vote through a document that has not been made available to me.”
Harrison County Administrator Laura Pysz-Laulis explained that she had distributed the letter via email to the commissioners that morning. Hinkle replied and said “I think this is extremely unprofessional . . . I have no idea what this is about.”
Hinkle then made a motion to table the item, which was defeated. He also argued, after an executive session was proposed, that there was no basis for it. Hinkle then stated that City of Bridgeport Mayor Andrew Lang be a part of the executive session, which was also successfully opposed.
After a lengthy executive session, the Commission came out and voted unanimously for Thomas to sign the letter in her capacity as Harrison County Commission President.
